Mueller Report

1. Robert Mueller completed his report on Friday, March 22, 2019 and turned it into the Attorney General
2. We don't fully know what's in it
3. However, Attorney General William Barr put out a summary over the weekend
4. He says that Special Counsel Mueller did not find that Trump or anyone on his campaign conspired or coordinated with representatives of the Russian Government in the actions to interfere with the US presidential election. 
5. He also says that Mueller made no determination on obstruction of justice - but that he found that the evidence did not exonerate Trump
6. Barr determined that since there was no underlying crime to obstruct, there could be no obstruction of justice.

Keep in mind that William Barr was appointed Attorney General to replace Jeff Sessions, who was fired because he had recused himself from oversight of the investigation. Trump wanted a loyalist in place, and he got one. Well before being considered for Attorney General Barr had sent an unsolicited 19-page memo outlining his belief that the investigation was illegitimate. 

Really, that should be about it, but no matter what is in the report, we know this:

• Several U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia took actions to interfere with and influence our presidential election
• Members of Trump's inner circle met with a variety of Russians, some with government or intelligence connections
• One of them was Donald Trump Junior
• Most of them lied about it when confronted
• Several of them have been indicted and some are going to prison
• There have been documented campaign contacts with Wikileaks, which received hacked emails & other documents from Russian sources
• One campaign staffer bragged about it to an Australian diplomat during a drinking session. The Australian notified the FBI
• A former British intelligence officer initially working for Republicans and later for the DNC came across information that the Trump campaign was working with Russians to get "dirt" on Clinton and turned it over to the FBI
• Trump is unusually deferential to Putin, taking his unsupported word that Russia had not interfered
• Trump fired Comey, bragging to Russian officials afterward that firing Comey takes the pressure off him for the "Russia thing"
• Trump publicly humiliated Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from oversight of the investigation and eventually fired him, putting in loyalist William Barr
• Trump constantly and publicly threatened potential witnesses and attempted to undermine the investigation
• Trump's lawyers did not want him to be interviewed by Mueller or his team because of Trump's predilection for lying, they were concerned he would perjure himself

My prediction all along has been that there will be nothing in the Mueller report that unambiguously links Trump to anything illegal. Michael Cohen testified that Trump, like any good crime boss, maintains plausible deniability. Hardcore Trumpists will always maintain that it was all a politically motivated "witch hut", but there sure was a lot of smoke for there to have been no fire.

Now what has to happen is that the full report must be given to Congress so that they may come to their own conclusions.